Friday

Of Shadows and Men

It is nine into the night, the bazaar is ablaze with those cheap edisons. They illuminate the meat,the fish,the vegetables,they hide the vendors,into the shadows they cast,thru the heaps of meat,fish and the vegetables. Four roads meet at the bazaar, like four rivers meeting, they create this chaos, this blazing chaos,reeking with the smell of day old sweat and rotting vegetables, illuminating the violence, hiding the much needed peace into it's shadows. Dogs walk the streets,carrying in their canines the chunk of rot from the butcher's.The beggars, their faces illuminated, showing with even more clarity the grotesque violence of survival, hiding the lingering peace of death, into the shadows of ignorance. More bags, shopping bags, of plastic, of cloth carrying the bazaar, more legs,scrawling the place with shoes,sandals,more light till as far as my sight goes into the four streets,a cloud of moths on each bulb fluttering,to be dead by day, and rats scurrying on the ground for nibbles,which they will carry into their burrowed shadows. People walking home, into their own private shadows.

I too have a shadow to walk into, and I have to take this road which is illuminated only by the absence of shadows. This road runs thru one of those corners which are dead ends to other roads, they make the turn bleak. And in the darkest corner of one of these shadows I see a man sitting in the filth, shadowed, sitting cross legged, back bent and his head drooping over his belly. He makes not a noise, no body on that street does. I look at him thru the boundaries of the glowering shadows that illuminate this place and walk on, into my own shadow,my private shadow.

5 comments:

Sagar Kolte said...

Thanks girl.
:)

Unknown said...

"...the grotesque violence of survival." Interesting

Sagar Kolte said...

atul~:)

Anonymous said...

Sagar,I thot u said this was not a dark one.....Enjoyed reading it though....and hb once again

Sagar Kolte said...

Meenakshi~ Sorry if I did, but glad You enjoyed reading it. :)

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